A friend's birthday party goes belly up: Press Run

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio - Little did
I know that an invitation to a friend's birthday party held so much promise.

In
separate postings, earlier this month I had urged readers to try 14 new things
in 2014, and to find beauty and help redefine beauty in this new year.

My friend
Robbie asked me to join her and a group of her friends and acquaintances to
help her celebrate her birthday. The event was to be a girl's night out at her
place with Oriental take-out food.

As for the
activity, she planned to have a professional belly dancer teach us some moves
and give us a performance of her craft. We were to dress casually in yoga or
exercise clothing and bring nothing.

"Please
come, it will be fun," she said.

Belly
dancing. Well that could be one of my 14 new things to try, I thought. And,
while it certainly sounded exotic, or in my case comical, it could be one
definition of beauty.

Robbie is
a talented fiber artist, cancer survivor, alpaca farmer and workshop leader.
But more than that, she is a beautiful soul who draws eclectic groups of people
to her, like bees to honey.

She's one
of those full-of-life people who is always eager to show you the newest fiber
art technique she is working on. She has a multitude of projects and shows she
is working on at anyone point in time. She throws open the doors to her studio
on a regular basis and invites other artists to learn and share with her.

Her
ongoing cancer check-ups and treatments are real, but she gives you the
impression that they are mundane chores, like laundry. If it wasn't for her
short-cropped hair, you wouldn't know. She is more vivacious than most people I
know.

At every
art opening she has, Robbie, serves champagne and strawberries with chocolate
dip. "Life is short, so you may as well enjoy it," is her motto.

It's hard
to argue with.

After a
couple glasses of Robbie's legendary champagne, and meeting Angela, a
professional belly dancer, we were ready to try out our stomach muscles.

Angela assured
us we all had stomach muscles somewhere inside us and each one of us would be adept
at one or several movements and not so good at one or several movements. She
also set us at ease by pointing out that she had a rounded stomach, like most
of us, not a skinny-girl model's physique.

There were
nine of us, ranging from slender to voluptuous, tall and statuesque to petite.
We are all middle aged and mostly comfortable in our skins.

Robbie
distributed "coin skirts," which were really cloth wraps that could be tied
around your hips. Small metal disks were sewn on the wraps in rows, designed to
make a ting-ting noise when you moved your hips enough to get them jingling. It
did give us something to focus on.

After
warming up with some stretches, we started with a side-to-side hip snap, I
think it might have been called. That morphed to a slide with a forward step, a
figure eight hip motion, and a shimmy, which most of us could do with a bat of
an eyelash.

Then the
difficulty escalated. Next came arm movements, which were supposed to be fluid
and graceful. Finger movements were added, then dance steps with the hip
movements. And the classic upper torso shimmy that men think of when they think
of belly dancing.

At that
point Angela explained some of the differences between cabaret and tribal
dancing. She had done both, but much preferred the tribal style. It's less
burlesque, she said.

According
to her research, it was never intended for men to watch and be entertained by.

"Women in
the harem danced for each other," she said. "They were bored and wanted to stay
in shape. Plus the movements were designed to strengthen muscles for an easier
time at childbirth."

Next for
me was the really hard part, putting all of the movements together to a song.
After that we were to take turns calling out a move for everyone to perform.
Then Angela formed us into a circle and had us step forward, one by one to show
off our best moves to an old rock'n'roll song.

Throughout
the practice Angela had played a variety of traditional tribal and cabaret
music.

"This is
better than Zumba," one woman said, as Angela prepared herself to dance a solo performance
for us. Nearly everyone agreed that it was good exercise. Then Robbie asked us
if we might consider taking a weekly class from Angela, and most said they
would.

Angela
came out dressed in beautiful draping garments with a scarf covering her head
and upper torso. She preformed several breathtaking moves with the scarf and
then revealed she had a curved sword, which she balanced on her head and
continued to dance with it balanced on the blade end, not missing a beat.

Okay, what
we were doing was exercise. What she was doing was better than dancing, it was
pure magic. She was mesmerizing, despite the fact that she had retired four
years ago and was "out of practice," she said.

For a
moment, I could image how beautiful it may have been with a harem of women performing
graceful challenging movements for the pure delight of each others' company and
appreciation. Perhaps it is an art form worthy of study and preservation. I do know that it was fun.

RWANDAN BICYCLE TEAM - The Heights Bicycle Coalition, joined
by Bike Cleveland, is sponsoring a showing of the movie, Rising From Ashes 7 p.m. Jan. 23 at Cedar Lee Theater.

The award-winning movie is the uplifting
story of the development of a Rwandan National Bicycle Team which in
turn has enabled a Rwandan bicyclist to enter the 2012 Olympics, a
first, and is working toward entry in the Tour de France. The
movie includes information about Rwanda, showing both its beautiful
country and the genocide.

HOUSE OF HORRORS – Meet author Robert Sberna, a journalist who wrote House of Horrors, the shocking true story of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland strangler. Sberna will speak at The Shaker Heights Main Library 7-8:30 p.m. Jan. 29.

The program is for adults. Sberna contributes to several national publications. He began his career covering the police and court beats for newspapers in the Midwest. In recent years, his writing has appeared in the Washington Examiner, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Neoconomist, Crain`s, and Ohio Magazine. He is a graduate of St. Edward High School and Ohio University and resides in Strongsville.

URGE TO MERGE - How Animals Do It: An Exploration of Coupling Strategies in Nature is an adult program offered 2-3 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Lee Road Branch Library. Harvey Webster, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History’s director of wildlife resources is the speaker.

YOUTH SCIENCE NIGHT - School-age children through fifth grade can learn about magnets using science experiments 6:30-7:30 p.m. Jan. 27 at the University Heights Branch Library. Adults are encouraged to come to assist in the experiments.

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